Stradbroke WI
Claim your free evenings
Women of Stradbroke and neighbouring villages - did you know that you can come to 2 meetings for free as a taster? Come along for a visit and find out for yourselves what a sociable, educational, active and outgoing bunch we are.
April business concerned:-
Education.
Healthy living, alternatives to plastic, food poverty, heart research and fun group quizzes.
Activities within the village.
Litter pick-up days in April, local food banks, debates regarding assisting the elderly with physical activity.
Social Events
Trips to Southwold theatre as a group, organised walks for the Association of Countrywomen of the world, group meeting to be at Fressingfield 25th April.
Also the usual monthly circle dancing, kurling, book-club and lunch club meetings.
The evening speaker.
As a physical chemist Don Darling has spent much of his working life in ice cream and he came to talk to us about the challenges and innovations involved in providing the public with the happiness that is ice cream.
Amazingly, fruity-ice foodstuff was thought to have been brought to Europe via Mesopotamia in approximately 2000BC, via China in about 1000BC and with Marco Polo to Italy. The Italians added dairy to it, and little did they know what a delightful craving they would start. The first ice cream machine being patented in the USA in 1840 lead to even more accessibility and ice cream factories beginning to titillate the public palate. The first of these factories in the UK was opened in 1922 by Bird's Eye-Walls.
Modern ice cream is a complex combination of dairy products, fats, sugars, ice, air, stabilisers, thickeners and flavourings. It is formed by processes of mixing, pasteurising, freezing and hardening. We enjoy it in tubs, lollies, floats, ice cream sandwiches and rippled gateaux - and any colour from white to blue.
Without the inventions of innovative chemists and engineers we would not have chocolate coatings, crisp cornets, ruffled ripples or coated ice creams on a stick.
Different cultures enjoy their ices in many forms. The Germans are partial to spaghetti shapes; the Japanese like ice cream within rice cakes; in Thailand it is made to order on a frozen platter at street stalls and in Turkey they enjoyed the sticky-elastic maras dondurma, which is also sold from street stalls.
We were informed that the best way to use our home machines is to aerate the mixture well by whipping, before adding flavourings.
That being noted..........we all ate ice cream! And very nice it was too, accompanied by Kamal's wonderful baking. What more could we need?
Thanks to our hostesses,Roz and Kamal, for the evening and to Don for providing a fabulous evening.
Next meeting is May 10th when David Merritt will regale us regarding air navigation.
